The Brain: Friend or Foe?

Aren’t you curious to find out why we are highly prone to identify countless excuses to justify our own limits, failures and counterproductive behavioral patterns? Neuroscientific studies tell us that the worse wrecker of our lives is our own brain.

Neither your boss or the bureaucratic system, nor the environment or bad luck, and not even the precarious socio-economical context we face nowadays hinder our goals as severely as our own sub-consciousness does.

Among other various functions, our brain is responsible to sort out the information that gets to our consciousness and set the priority for the required levels of attention and energy. The limbic system, the oldest part of our brain, is also the most powerful and well-defined component of our neuronal pathway (the hard-wired side of the brain). That is why it has the tendency of taking control over those aspects of our lives that our more recent developed sides of the brain (such as our frontal lobe or other regions that are associated with more refined intellectual activities) should normally be responsible for.

Resistance to change
Our conservation instinct is the one that triggers the anxiety attacks that are so absurdly common in our age, even if we have never experienced hunger or the force of wild beasts threatening our lives. On the contrary, we are living during the most secure period in the history of humankind. We enjoy a level of comfort that our ancestors could not even have dreamed of. Now we don’t even have to worry about satisfying the basic needs of Maslow’s hierarchy.

Yet, our reptilian brain, whose activity is mainly subconscious, works as it did a thousand years ago. Thus, it obstructs the activity of newer sides of our brain, blocking our creativity, efficiency and our ability to analyze and synthesize information.

The reason why it is so difficult to initialize a benefic change in our lives (such as opting for a healthy lifestyle, completing the project that we dropped in college but we secretly still crave for, or even shifting jobs) is that our brain has developed a defense mechanism that has a direct impact upon our decisions. At a neuronal level, the brain is trained to detect any form of change around us and signal it as a dangerous irregularity. All this process takes place in the orbital cortex, which is strongly connected to the side of the brain responsible with fear (the amygdala).

These two components compete for resources against the pre-frontal lobe, which controls the complex cognitive functions. Therefore, we tend to react emotionally and impulsively, as our primary instincts take control. When this mechanism of change/error detection is overloaded, the obsessive-compulsive syndrome settles in (our brain continuously and wrongfully signals an error and then tries to fix it). In order to be able to pursue a change we must want it and be aware of the mechanisms that prevent it from happening.

Neuroplasticity, the path for personal evolution
The good news is that the neuro pathways that induce the behavioral patterns can be reshaped. It is called neuroplasticity and it refers to the ability of the brain to allow intention, attention and constant effort to mold it. The bad news is that these three requirements – intention, attention and continuous effort – depend on our personal levels of motivation and determination.

Thoughts can reshape neuronal pathways, thanks to the fact that neurons are multimodal – that means that the same set of neurons start operating when we perform an action (we lift up a glass of water), when we watch someone else performing it or when we imagine doing it (by visualizing ourselves lifting it up). “If you can’t imagine someone lifting up a glass of water, you can’t understand the meaning of the words «someone lifted up a glass of water». In order to convey the correct meaning, our brain converts abstract language into visual simulations”, explains the neuroplasticity expert, Norman Doidge, in his book, The Brain that Changes Itself.

In quantum mechanics, the question you ask about nature influences the answers you get. Similarly, the question you ask about your own brain (which is a quantum medium), has a great impact on the quality of the connections it triggers in search of the answer, thus influencing it.

According to neuropsychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, “if we replace attention with the question you have in mind, it means that where you focus attention, you create connections” (opinion expressed during David Rock’s interview, “A Brain Based Approach to Coaching”). If you focus your attention on developing a certain skill, you can build, physically, new neuronal pathways adapted for that certain skill.

Self-directed neuroplasticity represents people’s ability to modify their own brain activity throughout practice and throughout the focus of attention in a constructive way. The proof: a group of subjects, under the coordination of Schwartz, all suffering from the obsessive-compulsive syndrome, after having exercised for several weeks, began to systematically modify the neuronal pathways responsible with signaling that something is wrong. The key to changing the brain functioning is the systematic training and self-observation known as “mindful awareness”, which helps people respond rationally to emotional distress.

The Quantum Zeno Effect, an essential principle of quantum Physics, has been explained 30 years ago: the continuous observation of a molecule will keep it stable by slowing down the normal fluctuation rhythm (recorded when the molecule is not under observation). Similarly, the mental act of focusing onto a certain detail holds the corresponding neuronal pathways stable and open. If you invest enough attention into developing a certain set of connections, they will maintain their relevant pathways at a stable, open and dynamic level, until they become hard-wired in the brain.

When there’s a will, there’s a wayAn equally important aspect in life management and personal development is the perspective we have when analyzing problems. In an article submitted by Elliot Berkman, (University of Oregon) and David Rock (co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute) at the 2012 Summit in New York City, the authors highlight the neurologic approach we must have when analyzing goals in order to increase the chances of success. Having a clear sense of our goal in mind means being able to answer the questions of “why have I settled this goal?” and “how can I accomplish it?”. But the brain cannot focus at both simultaneously. Coaches advise baseball players to focus onto a specific detail of their movement, such as launching the ball. This trick enables the player to perceive all other details – the position of his fingers or the arc described by the arm – in a subconscious manner, in order to achieve the perfect bat.

At a neuronal level, the same principle applies to all the tasks we have to perform daily. We already have a representation of the way our brain processes goals. Depending on our choice of this mental representation, the brain can help us accomplish the goals or can hinder them. Just like baseball players, we can have different representations of our own daily job. Do you usually type words or write articles? Are you vigilant during meetings or are you rather an emphatic participant? Psychologists Charles Carver and Michael Scheier believe that both versions can be correct, as the actions don’t exclude each other (typing is another way of referring to writing). It is just that motivation (desire) arises at the higher level of the goal pursuit, whilst mechanics (the procedure we apply to achieve the goal) is taking place at the lower levels. Thus, the saying “When there’s a will, there’s a way” is neuro-scientifically valid.

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